This document discusses barriers to widening participation in lifelong learning and proposes authentic learning as a solution. It describes a case study where students conducted action research with their university's student union to identify barriers to student involvement. The students developed a cohesive learning community and felt their opinions mattered. The research was valuable to the student union. The document recommends choosing socially relevant problems, involving partners early, focusing on immediate learning benefits, empowering student voices, and using authentic learning to develop student potential.

1. Transforming Widening Participation
with Active Engagement through
Authentic Learning
Lyndsey Stanton – l.stanton@sheffield.ac.uk
Dr Gary C Wood – g.c.wood@sheffield.ac.uk | @GC_Wood

2. Overview
● Issues and barriers to WP engagement in a lifelong learning context
● Authentic learning – Learning Outcomes vs Learning Benefits
● A Case Study: Researching with Communities
● Impact
● Recommendations.
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3. Barriers to WP in lifelong learning
● Students’ perception of themselves and their ability
● Poor sense of belonging within the University means lack of integration and
connection with the University community
● Previous negative experiences mean students can be uncomfortable and ill-
equipped to fully engage in HE
● Personal circumstances and responsibilities outside studying.
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4. Authentic Learning: Outcomes & Benefits
● Learning Outcomes – value and relevance may not be apparent to students
until some future time
● Learning Benefits (Wood & Stanton 2016) – immediate impact and value
that students see and experience through their studies.
● Crucial for instructors to pay attention to learning benefits because:
○ Provides opportunities for students to experience learning outcomes in
ways that resonate with their context and lived experience
○ Students become deeper, more engaged learners through seeing the
impact of their learning and their potential to make a difference with it.
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5. Case Study: Researching with Communities
● Teach and enable students to solve social problems through action
research
● The students:
○ Small cohort – 8 students
○ Mostly mature learners, some of whom have young families
○ Not engaged with university life beyond academic department
○ At risk of leaving course
○ Passionate
○ Determined.
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6. Case Study: Researching with Communities
● Partnership with the Students’ Union:
“From a student perspective, what might be
potential barriers to involvement in Students’
Union activities and what solutions or
approaches might resolve these?”
Stella McHugh, Head of External Engagement
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7. What the Students and SU staff think
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8. Impact
● Develops a cohesive community of learning
● Students felt valued – by each other and the University community
● Greater sense of self-efficacy and belonging
● Delivers outputs of real business value to the project partner
● Met the learning outcomes and gained learning benefits.
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9. Recommendations
1. Choose a problem students can identify with, so they see immediate value
in finding solutions
2. Involve the project partner as early as possible, so that the research
question is of genuine interest to them
3. Focus on learning benefits that can be achieved by meeting the learning
outcomes
4. Ensure students feel empowered to raise any and all issues that they
identify through their work – demonstrating that their opinion matters
5. Use the power of authentic learning to help students gain a sense of their
own potential (as change agents).
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10. Transforming Widening Participation
with Active Engagement through
Authentic Learning
Lyndsey Stanton – l.stanton@sheffield.ac.uk
Dr Gary C Wood – g.c.wood@sheffield.ac.uk | @GC_Wood